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It starts small October 26, 2008

Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, christianity, following God, Quest, spirituality.
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Last week at Quest, we continued our discussion of the Kingdom of God, especially the parables from Matthew 13 that Jesus begins with the phrase “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…” This time we looked at two similar parables that Jesus told together. He compares the Kingdom of Heave to a mustard seed (Matt. 13:31-32) and to yeast (Matt. 13:33). These are similar parables, but the differences between the two help us to see some slightly different aspects of the Kingdom. Here is some of what we discussed about these parables:

  • Both a mustard seed and yeast are very small. Mustard seeds were the smallest plant seeds known to First Century farmers. Similarly, you only need a few grains of yeast in order to make a large loaf of bread rise. So both of these start small but create something or have an impact this is much, much larger.
  • The impact of the Kingdom of Heaven should be visible to others. While a mustard seed is the smallest garden seed, it creates a plant that can grow to be 10 feet tall. If you think of a garden being planted behind a house, you would be able to see the tops of the mustard plant from in front of the house. There would be no hiding that it was being grown. The Kingdom of Heaven should have that kind of impact in our lives. If we have a relationship with Jesus, the effects of the Kingdom should be apparent in our lives. Even if we wanted to try to hide it in the “back yard” of our lives, it should be visible to everyone.
  • The Kingdom of Heaven should be useful and beneficial to others. Jesus tells us that once the mustard plant has grown, the birds of the air come and perch in its branches. (Matt. 13:32). Outsiders, who have no direct connection with the Kingdom of Heaven, can receive a benefit from it. And this impact should extend beyond simply other people who are themselves connected to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is interesting to note that Ezekiel uses the phrase “birds of the air” to refer to Gentiles, who would be people who did not know God. Therefore, when the Kingdom of Heaven is working is us, and when we are operating within it, it should have a positive impact on people who do not yet know God.
  • Once the Kingdom of Heaven starts its work, you can’t stop it. Once you plant the seed, it is going to grow. Short of cutting the plant down, there is nothing that the gardener can do to keep the plant from growing, or to make sure that it only grows 3 feet high. This idea is even more evident in the Parable of the Yeast. Once a person starts mixing yeast into dough, the process can’t be stopped. That person can’t remove the yeast. They can’t contain it to only one part of the bread. The yeast works its way into the entire loaf. Similarly, the Kingdom of Heaven should work its way into all parts of our lives.

That should give you a feel for our discussion of the Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast. next week, we will continue to move through Matthew 13 by looking at the Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl.

Loving God and Loving Others May 19, 2008

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At Quest, we have spent the first part of this year looking at what God intends for the relationship between God and man to look like. To do that, we’ve looked at a bunch of stories from the Genesis and Exodus. We started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and discussed what God’s Plan A was before sin entered the picture. Then, once sin did enter the picture, we looked at what we can learn from the relationships between God and people like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and Moses.

Now we’re turning to the New Testament and changing our focus a little bit. In Mark 12:28, a teacher of the law came to Jesus and, impressed by an answer to a previous question, asked Jesus which commandment was the most important. Jesus responded by saying “‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31). The teacher of the law agreed, then added that these two commandments are “more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (Mark 12:33). Jesus then responds by noticing that the man answered wisely and by saying “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:34).

This last exchange is very interesting. Jesus is saying that these two commandments – loving God and loving others – are more important than anything else. They are more important than all of the rituals that are part of our worship, and they are more important than all of the rules and structures that we set up. Not that those things are unimportant, but they are less important than the commands to love God and love others.

Over the next couple of months, we are going to focus on these two commandments and see what we can learn from them. In one sense, they are very simple. We are instructed to love God and love others. In spite of the fact that they appear simple, they are very important. In fact, in another place where Jesus answered this question, he added that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:40). In other words, everything that God commands relates to one of these two items. They are all designed to get us to display love to God and to others.

At the same time, these can be very difficult. What exactly do these commands mean? In English, the word “love” can have a lot of different meanings. So what exactly does “love” mean in this context? How do I show love to God? How do I show love to my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? These are some of the issues we’re going to look at over the coming weeks.

While this has a different focus than our discussions about the relationship between God and people, the topics are clearly related. If we have a relationship with God, then these are the two primary commandments that we should be following. If we are following God, people should see us loving God and loving others. So these topics are going to help us see how we should live out the relationship with God that we have been talking about for the last several months.

Relationships with a big, awe-inspiring God May 5, 2008

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At Quest last week, we continued looking at Moses. We skipped ahead to after he had gone Egypt and asked for Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. After God brought the 10 Plagues on Egypt. After Moses let the people out of Egypt. After God parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross on dry ground. After all of these things happened, God and Moses led the people of Israel to Mt. Sinai, where God provided the Ten Commandments and the other laws for Israel to follow. We looked at two related stories from Mt. Sinai.

The first one came after God provided the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:18-21 tells us that the people saw the lightning and thunder and smoke when God was talking to Moses and they were afraid. They told Moses “Speak to us yourself. Then we’ll listen. But don’t let God speak to us. If he does, we’ll die.” Moses responded by saying “Don’t be afraid. God has come to put you to the test. He wants you to have respect for him. That will keep you from sinning.” In spite of this, while Moses approached where God was, the people remained a long ways off.

The second story comes after Moses receives all of the laws from God. Exodus 34:29-35 tells us that when Moses would talk with God, his face would shine so that people would be afraid to come near him. Because of that, he would put a veil over his face, and he would keep the veil on until he went to talk to God again.

Here is some of what we talked about concerning these stories:

  • God can be kind of scary. He is big. He’s hard to understand at times. He’s powerful. He asks people to do things that seem impossible. Because of the, it is easy to understand where the Israelites were coming from and why they were afraid.
  • Having some level of fear of God is a good thing. As Moses points out, God wants us to respect him. Having some fear of and respect for him will help keep us from sinning. If we truly respect God, we won’t want to do things that hurt him or damage our relationship with him. Think about it this way. Typically, we try to avoid doing things that will hurt our friends or family members. This isn’t because there are rules that we need to follow. We do it because we don’t want to make the people we care about upset or do anything that would damage our relationship with them. Ideally, we shouldn’t avoid sin because sins are a violation of God’s rulebook. We should avoid sin because it damages our relationship with God. The more respect we have for God, the easier that is.
  • In spite of God’s awesome power and the fear it can create, God wants to have a one-on-one relationship with us. It is us, not God, who uses that to create separation between us. It is the people, not God, who say they can’t come close to God. Moses encourages them to come to God, but the people choose to stay away. Often, we do the same thing. We say “God is too big,” or “God is too powerful,” or “God is too scary,” and so we choose to stay away from him. In those times, we need to remember that we are the ones putting distance between us and God. He is still telling us to come close.
  • When we spend time with God, it makes a change in us that others can see. For Moses, spending time with God made his face glow. While we might not have exactly that result, there will still be things about us that others notice. When someone has good things going on in their life, particularly things involving God, they do have the ability to metaphorically light up a room when they walk into it. Everything seems brighter and happier when the walk in. Others might not understand exactly what the difference is or exactly what is causing it, but they will notice something about us if we are spending time with God.

Those are the highlights of our discussion about Moses. Next week, we are leaving the Old Testament. We are going to start a series of discussions about what Jesus says are the two greatest commandments.

Lessons from a burning bush April 27, 2008

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At Quest, we are continuing our series about the relationship between God and people, and what God intends for that relationship to look like. Last week we talked about Moses and the story of the Burning Bush.

In order to really understand what is going on with the Burning Bush, you have to go back to the beginning of Moses’s story, which is told in Exodus 2. Moses was born during a time that Pharaoh had ordered all Hebrew boys to be thrown into the Nile to be killed, but the girl babies were allowed to live. When Moses was born, his mother hid him for three moths. When he got too big for that, she made a basket for him, and placed him in the Nile. His sister watched him to see what would happen. What happened was that Pharaoh’s daughter came down, saw the basket, and decided to keep him. Moses’s sister then came up and offered to find a woman to nurse him. So it was Moses’s mother who nursed him and cared for him, but he was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. When Moses was grown, he went to his own people and saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. So he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting, and he tried to get them to stop. The Hebrew asked “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:14). Pharaoh heard about it and tried to kill Moses, so Moses fled to Midian. There he found a wife and became the shepherd taking care of his father-in-law’s flocks. He did that for a long time before. One day, he was with the flock “on the far side of the desert” when he saw a bush that was on fire but didn’t burn up. (Exodus 3). He walked over to check it out, and talked with God there. The meeting at the burning bush set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Ten Plagues on Egypt, the Israelites leaving Egypt and going into the wilderness, and finally the Israelites entering the land that God had promised Abraham. Here is some of what we talked about in our discussion of Moses and the Burning Bush.

  • God can handle our questions and doubts. God tells Moses that he wants Moses to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt. When God does this, Moses has lots of questions and concerns. God patiently addresses each of these. Moses asks “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?” (Exodus 3:12). He asks, when he tells them that God has sent him “and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”(Exodus 3:13). He asks “”What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” (Exodus 4:1). He then points out that he is has never been eloquent and that he is slow of speech and tongue. (Exodus 4:10). God has an answer to each of these, and the answers are designed to be reassuring to Moses. He answers the first question by telling Moses that he will be with him. He answers the second question by giving Moses his name “I Am Who I Am” and telling him what to say to the elders of Israel. He answers the third question by giving him some miraculous sings that he can show to the people and to Pharaoh. And he answers the fourth question by sending Moses’s brother Aaron, who is eloquent and a good speaker, to him to be his voice. Moses’s questions and concerns are legitimate. God responds to these issues by giving Moses answers to the questions and concerns so that Moses can be reassured and know that God is really with him in this.
  • While God will answer our legitimate concerns, there does come a point when he does get angry. After God has answered each of Moses’s questions, Moses still says “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” (Exodus 4:13). It is then, and only then, that God becomes angry. But even when he gets angry, he shows what righteous anger without sin looks like. He doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t say “Fine then. If you’re going to be that way I will send someone else.” He is angry with Moses, but still sends Moses to accomplish the mission and still gives Moses the tools he needs to accomplish it. This is encouraging, because it is easy to think that if God is mad at us that he doesn’t care about us anymore, or that he can’t use us to do anything. This story tells us that nothing is farther from the truth.
  • God wants a relationship with and uses flawed people. This is one of the most encouraging things about this story. It is easy to get into the mindset that in order for God to want a relationship, I need to be perfect. And as soon as I’m not perfect, then he’s going to stop coming around. Again, we see that this isn’t true. Moses was clearly a flawed person. He was a murderer. He tried to convince God to use someone else to save the Israelites from Egypt. Later in the story, he will continue to do some things that are not God’s plan. Yet God continues to have a face-to-face relationship with Moses and continues to use him to lead Israel. If God can do that with Moses, he can do it with me. Now, this doesn’t mean that we have a license to do wrong things. God wants and expects us to do the right thing, and doing the wrong thing has consequences. However, doing the wrong thing doesn’t disqualify us from a relationship with God.
  • God’s timing is perfect. God sent Pharaoh’s daughter at just the right time to find the baby Moses. He met Moses at the burning bush at just the right time to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. He sent Aaron to meet Moses at just right time so that Moses would have someone who was more eloquent to act as his spokesman. There are times that we want things done right away. But God is able to see more than we can. And his timing for things is always perfect.
  • We see Moses learn the lesson of humility. Before Moses goes to Midian, he was raised in Pharaoh’s house. He was used to power, and probably thought that he could save the Israelites on his own. In fact, the word “judge” used the by the Hebrew in Exodus 2:14 could also mean deliverer or ruler, and is the same word used to refer to the leaders of Israel in the book of Judges. This implies that Moses is setting himself up to lead the Hebrews. When he runs away, he learns humility. In fact, he reaches the point that he is referred to as the most humble man on earth. (Numbers 12:3). In fact, he learns this lesson so well that he doesn’t even want God to make him the leader. Once again, as in the story of Joseph, we see the importance of humility. It is when we are humble that God can most effectively use us, because we no longer are acting for our glory, and we can put the interests of God and others above our own.

Those are the highlights of our discussion about Joseph Next week we will continue with the life of Moses.

Lessons from Abraham’s servant April 6, 2008

Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, christianity, faith, following God, Quest, spirituality.
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At Quest, we have spent the last couple of weeks using the stories of Abraham to get a picture of what God wants the relationship between God and people to look like. This time, we moved on to the story in Genesis 24 about Abraham sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac. To summarize the story, Abraham’s servant goes back to land Abraham originally came. When he gets there, he prays that God will bring the person God intends him to choose to the well and that the young woman will offer to give him and his camels water. The first young woman he talks is Rachel, and she does exactly what he prayed for, and she “just happens” to be from the family of Abraham’s uncle. Rachel’s family acknowledges that this is something from God, and they send her with the servant to be Isaac’s wife. Again, there are a number of lessons that we can learn here:

· God listens to us when we talk to him, even if we aren’t anyone who is “important.” One of the things that we see here is that God doesn’t only listen to Abraham. It isn’t Abraham who prays that God will work in finding the right woman. It is the servant. And God hears and answers this prayer, even though he is only a servant. You don’t have to be important for God to be interested in you or to listen to you. He will respond to anyone who wants a relationship with him.

· At least sometimes, God begins to work to answer our prayers even before we ask. In this case, Rachel was there even before the servant finished praying. (Genesis 24:15) This means that God had set events in motion to answer that prayer well before the servant actually started praying it.

· The servant recognized the work of God. Once he knew that his prayer had been answered, the first thing he did, even before he explained who he was to Rachel, was to bow down and worship God and to thank God for answering his prayer. I think this gives us a good model for how we should respond when God answers our prayers.

· We also see the importance of relationships with God in our interactions with others. While it is unstated, it seems fairly certain that at least one of Abraham’s motivations for looking for a wife for Isaac among his family is that he didn’t want Isaac to marry a Canaanite woman, who would follow the Canaanite gods and who would teach her children to do the same. Abraham’s family seems to have at least some understanding of who God is, and they recognize that the hand of God is at work in the situation. Because of this, they do not hesitate to send Rachel to be Isaac’s wife. It is much easier for people who have at least some relationship with God to recognize and understand when God is working in situations.

Those are the highlights of our discussions over the last couple of weeks. In both of these stories we see that God cares about people and will provide for the people who follow him. Next week we will continued looking at stories from Genesis and what they can teach us about the relationship between God and people.

Lessons from God’s visit to Abraham March 15, 2008

Posted by questcollegeministry in Bible, christianity, following God, Quest, spirituality.
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At Quest, we continued looking at the life of Abraham. Abraham, and his interactions with God, can tell us a lot about what God wanted the relationship between God and people to look like in the aftermath of sin entering the picture. This time we looked at the long story in Genesis 18 and 19 where God comes and visits Abraham, then Abraham pleads for Sodom (where his nephew Lot lived), and finally God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah but saves Lot. In this one story, we see a number of different aspects in the relationship between God and people.

  • Once again, we see that God is interested in an actual, personal relationship with people. In this case, God actually shows up at Abraham’s house. God has dinner with Abraham and has conversations with him. It is also worth noting that, in this case, it isn’t Abraham going to and pursing God. God is coming to where Abraham is to interact with him. So we see God pursuing the relationship with Abraham. So God isn’t just some aloof presence waiting for us to come to him. He wants to actually pursue a relationship with us.
  • As a side note, in Abraham’s treatment of the visitors, we see a perfect example of someone loving their neighbor in the sense that Jesus talked about in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:25-37). Three people show up unannounced at Abraham’s house, and before he knows who they are, he essentially demands that they let him make them dinner. He brings them bread and steak. However, when they show up, the bread is still flour – 5 gallons of flour, actually. And the steaks are still walking around in the pasture. He doesn’t just share his dinner with them. He fixes an extravagant meal from scratch. Then when they are eating, Abraham doesn’t join them. Instead, he stands under a tree, waiting. In other words, in spite of his wealth and power, Abraham acts as the servant of these men who he has never seen before while they eat a banquet of the finest food he can serve them. That is about the best possible example of loving your neighbor.
  • God doesn’t just want interaction with Abraham. He actually wants to include Abraham in his planning session. God is essentially having a war counsel. He decides to have it on Abraham’s front lawn and invites Abraham to be a part of it. He actually begins that part of the discussion by saying that he can’t keep Abraham in the dark about what he is about to do. (Genesis 18:17-19). Because of his relationship with Abraham, he feels like he needs to let Abraham know what is going on. Think about that. God is interested enough in the people who follow him to want them to be in on what he plans on doing.
  • God cares about Abraham’s opinion. When God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham realizes that Lot’s life is on the line. So Abraham asks God if he would spare Sodom if he could find 50 righteous people living there. (Genesis 18:23-26). He then continues to negotiate with God until they get down to 10 people. (Genesis 18:27-33). If God can find even 10 righteous people in Sodom, he will save the city. God cares about what Abraham wants, and he is even willing to change his plans because his friend Abraham asks him to. God really cares about the opinions and desires of the people who have a relationship with him.
  • When the angels show up in Sodom, Lot treats them much the same way as Abraham did. It is in a city context, rather than a country one, but Lot offers them a meal, a place to stay, and all the protection that he can offer. (Genesis 19:1-9). He is even willing to risk the well-being, and potentially the lives, of his children to protect these men who he has never met before. Like Abraham, Lot is demonstrating love for his neighbors in the sense that Jesus talked about. Compare this to the way that the rest of the people of Sodom wanted to treat the visitors. (Genesis 19:5). Their desire to rape the visitors is about as far from demonstrating love as possible.
  • God cares enough about Abraham to give him what he wanted, even though it wasn’t really what he asked for. When Abraham was bargaining for Sodom, what he was really trying to do was to rescue his nephew Lot. When God couldn’t find 10 righteous people, he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. But he rescued Lot, which is what Abraham really wanted. God really does care about what the people who have a relationship with him want. And when the things we want are right, he is willing to provide those wants, although it might not happen quite the way we thought it would.

Those are the highlights of our discussion about God’s visit to Abraham and Sodom and about what this story tells us concerning God’s desire for his relationship with people. Next week we will continue looking at some of the events in the life of Abraham to see what they can teach us.

Who are we February 6, 2008

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At Quest last week, after spending a couple of weeks talking about who God is, we moved on discussing who people are. If God is the creator of the universe and everything in it, then where do men and women fit into the equation?

On one level of thinking, people are just another part of God’s creation. We share characteristics with other creatures that God created. We breathe air; we have skeletons; we have children. But our position in the world and with God doesn’t stop there. Here are some of the other things we talked about.

  • Genesis 2:7 tells us that God made Adam from the dust of the ground. So we started off as nothing. There is nothing special about what people were made from. Without the actions of God, there is nothing significant about us or our place in the world. We would just live our lives, then return to the dust we were made from.
  • But God didn’t stop there. He breathed his spirit into us. As we talked about last week, when God breathed the breath of life into us, he breathed his very essence into us. This makes us different from other parts of creation. We actually carry part of the creator inside of us.
  • Related to that, Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created us in his image. We spent a long time discussing what all that entails. Certainly one aspect of that is that God is spirit, and so when he made us in his image, he gave us a spirit as well. There is more to people than just a physical body. That is one of the things that make us different than the other creatures God created. God is an emotional being. Just about every emotion that humans express, we can also see God expressing at some point in the Bible. God also is creative. You don’t have to look very hard to see evidence of that aspect of God. Similarly, he made us creative. We people do creative things, they are displaying part of the nature of God.
  • God created people to be in charge of creation. Genesis 1:26 says about people, “let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” God intended for people to charge over the earth. But that also means that we should be taking good care of creation. God gave us control, but we should be exercising that control in a way that would be pleasing to him.
  • We were created to have a relationship with God – to be loved by him. God could have created us in a way that he could just command us to do what he wanted, but he didn’t. He wanted us to be able to love him back. He wants us to follow him, but he wants it to be because we have chosen to do so. It always means more when someone does what you ask because they want to rather than because they have to.

This discussion served as a good way to introduce the idea of the relationship between God and people. We will pick up this thread next week when we talk about “Plan A.” When God created the earth, before Adam and Eve sinned, what was God’s plan? What did he intend the relationship between God and people to look like? That’s where we are headed in the next couple of weeks.

Three philosophies of butter January 23, 2008

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I came across this earlier this week:

Three Philosophies

I think it would be really interesting to see which of these products people would choose based solely on the name. I wonder what generalizations we could make about them and the types of arguments or appeals they would most readily respond to based on their choice. It’s something interesting to think about.

Thanks to Tweebiscuit via YSMarko.